Remake of cult classic Maniac Cop to be creatively produced by Nicolas Winding Refn and Bill Lustig
Cult director and horror movie know-it-all Bill Lustig’s 1988 exploitation classic Maniac Cop (starring late actor Robert Z’Dar, pictured above, and Bruce Campbell) has long been targeted for a remake, a pet project of none other than Danish auteur (and horror movie obsessive) Nicolas Winding Refn (The Neon Demon). Variety reported yesterday that the film is finally 100% a go, set to shoot this summer in LA with Wild Bunch on board to handle world sales.
Prescience MA’s Merlin Funds will be financing the film, which is being produced by Refn and Børglum’s Copenhagen-set banner Space Rocket Nation, along with Bold Films. Lustig and Refn will serves as creative producers on the film. What unholy film will these two madmen yield?
Ed Brubaker (Captain America: The Winter Soldier) wrote the script (the original was penned by It’s Alive director Larry Cohen) in collaboration with Refn, and will be directed by John Hyams. The story will take place in contemporary LA, with a female cop trying to find out why innocent people are being murdered at the meathooks of one her very own boys in blue.
Maniac Cop will mark the third collaboration between Refn and Wild Bunch, which handled international sales on Only God Forgives and The Neon Demon both of which competed at the Cannes Film Festival.
